Founders of a Russian startup accelerator launch a venture fund

According to the fund’s site, the geographic focus is the United States, Europe, Russia, Asia, and the CIS. They’ve indicated that they’re willing to offering from $25,000 (19,000 euro) to $25 million (19.1 million euro) in funding and are open to investing in projects at any stage, from concept to growth-stage. Per the original article on FIRRMA, approximately 70% of the investments will be directed towards the IT industry.

In an interview given in connection with this announcement, Shekhovtsov says that other fields which most interest them at this time are biotechnology, cleantech, energy-saving technologies, and robotics. The fund currently lists a loyalty program for the energy sector FLEECS and an innovative take on radiators System Heat as seed investments and an ecommerce website with little traffic Mart Mania, personal data security service B-152, and a skincare product company Aknol as venture investments, all of them mentioned in the TexDrive presentation in Spring 2012. Previous investments include Internet TV website Tvigle, seismic research companySeismoshelf, and IT security product company SearchInform.

Perhaps it is not surprising that the new fund will not limit itself to Russian projects, and will invest internationally.